Question, in the event of a merger, would the new US have to divest slots at DCA? Even if not required in the statute, would the addition of over two dozen slot pairs to US at DCA (combining AA slots with US) be a sticking point to the merger, therefore perhaps requiring US to divest some slots to win merger approval?

And the most fun speculative question, who would any newly open slots go to and where would they fly?

I think that particular issue wouldn't be a primary one to contend with, should such an event take place. But I doubt it. The new AADCA-LAX flight would be flown by the same carrier offering DCA-SAN, (was any forethought put into that?) Was US waiting to announce it's slot intentions, because they wanted to see if the AA thing would gain momentum first? AA would have JFK, PHL & DCA, nobody could see what will happen there, PHL could loose in the long run, although DCA would only be a domestic hub, and JFK a more Intl hub with less domestic connecting traffic.

Quoting RWA380 (Reply 1):AA would have JFK, PHL & DCA, nobody could see what will happen there, PHL could loose in the long run, although DCA would only be a domestic hub, and JFK a more Intl hub with less domestic connecting traffic.

OTOH, PHL could be the big winner. I don't think a combined AA will try to compete with the DLJFK/LGA hub. I think at JFK they can focus on their strong markets that NYC O&D traffic will support. The feed if needed could come from the B6 agreement if it's allowed to stand. PHL could gain int'l traffic (if the airport moves forward with expansion plans).

Quoting STT757 (Reply 3):I don't see them giving any slots up, if they did it would only be a handful which AA/US could easily source from redundant routes (BNA etc..).

Completely agree. They can give up some overlapping slots if need be to satisfy regulators, if it even comes to that, and if not, they can use some of those slots to fund additional frequency (I could definitely see ORD-DCA getting an extra few) or new routes (I could imagine a few).

Same really with LGA - they could use some of the slots from their one overlapping market (CLT, where Eagle has five flights) plus some of the other 'excess' peak slots US is sitting on (i.e., three separate daily occurrences of two PHL flights leaving within 45 mins of one another, two separate daily occurrences of three CLT flights within 1 hour of each other, etc.) to add new routes and bolster their combined presence in the market.

Quoting STT757 (Reply 3):I don't see them giving any slots up, if they did it would only be a handful which AA/US could easily source from redundant routes (BNA etc..).

I think they will have to. The combined US/AA would control over 70% of the slots at DCA. This isn't going to go over well with regulators. I expect somewhere between 10-20 roundtrips would be given up to get the merger through.

I still see PHL being a big winner out of this merger, JFK slots are valuable so US is going to bring more domestic flights to PHL. Yes PHL may loose a few international flights, but would still maintain a large domestic network.